Gain insights that incite with Cognisense

insights
that incite…

Hello.

Welcome to Cognisense, the new name for Northern Ireland’s most experienced and trusted market research company.

Our highly-skilled team works closely with public and private sector clients to help them understand what really drives user behaviour.

Whether you want to grow your business or brand, explore mindsets, test concepts or evaluate events, and no matter where your customers are, Cognisense uncovers insights that incite.

A bit more about us

Experienced
You’re unlikely to find any market research company north or south of Ireland with more skills and experience than Cognisense.

Since 1965, our team have helped inform some of the most important decisions in public policy, societal change, commerce and industry for public and private sector clients, first trading as Ulster Marketing Surveys, and later Kantar Millward Brown Ulster.

A bit more about us

Proven
You want to work with trusted people who can provide more than just data, and that’s us. We’ve gained a reputation for integrity, creativity and insight through years of advising on the creation of local and national advertising campaigns.

We’ve also helped huge numbers of marketing professionals understand consumer mood when developing their corporate and brand strategies.

A bit more about us

Skilled
Our four company directors lead a skilled team of highly-experienced qualitative and quantitative researchers, plus we also have Northern Ireland’s largest panel of face-to-face and telephone interviewers.

We’re smart and well-informed, and we’re also very good at listening. We work hard to understand the ins and outs of our clients’ projects because Cognisense people have business sense.

Services

Our extensive range of qualitative and quantitative services arms you with insights that incite change, new behaviours, growth, profit, satisfaction and loyalty, whether your project is public or private sector, business to business or business to consumer.

Get in touch if you want to find out more about any of the services below, or to discuss custom solutions.

Services

• Focus Groups
• Opinion Polls
• Accompanied Shops
• Segmentation Studies
• Mystery Shopping
• Business to Business
• Concept Testing
• Staff Satisfaction

List of our Services

• Workshops
• Production Tests
• Omnibus NI & ROI
• Brand Health
• Observations
• Usage & Attitude
• Consumer Satisfaction
• Depth Interviews

List of our Services

• New Product Development
• Advertising Tracking
• Ethnography
• Category Management
• Pre Testing
• Stakeholder Consultation
• Exit Polls & Surveys

Directors

Catherine Toner

Founding Partner & MD

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Founders

Alan Lobo

Founding Partner

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Founders

Dawn McCartney

Founding Partner

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Founders

Glenn Hall

Founding Partner

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Team

Richard McGimpsey

Senior Account Manager

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Founders

Jenny Gilgunn

Senior Account Manager

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Founders

David McGaughey

Operations Manager

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Founders

Harry Rosbotham

Senior Account Manager

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Cognisense

Adelaide House, 1 Falcon Road, Belfast, BT12 6SJ

Cognisense Ltd

Adelaide House
1 Falcon Road
Belfast
BT12 6SJ

Tel: +44 (0) 28 9038 7057

theteam@cognisense-uk.com

Catherine Toner

Founding Partner & MD

Catherine is a founder member and the Managing Director of Cognisense. She has a 25-year career history with Millward Brown Ulster (formerly Ulster Marketing Surveys), with the last 10 year spent as Managing Director.

Since completing her Masters in Marketing, she has been involved in brand management and for over 25 years has worked in marketing consultancy and market research. She was the NI Chair of the Chartered Institute of Marketing in 1992 .

She has experience and expertise across a wide range of disciplines from public health studies to travel and tourism to finance. As a full member of the MRS and the AQR Catherine is a very highly experienced researcher. She has been involved in designing and implementing studies for the vast majority of our clients from both the public and private sectors.

Alan Lobo

Founding Partner

Alan is a founder member and Director of Cognisense. He previously worked at Millward Brown Ulster joining as a Director in 2002.

Alan is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin where he majored in psychoanalysis. He worked as a Researcher in London for almost 20 years before moving to Millward Brown Ulster.

His specialism lies in qualitative research and he manages our team of qualitative researchers, overseeing all projects. He has utilised his vast experience and expertise to develop techniques which enable the most sensitive of information to be extracted in the focus group forum.

Alan has been responsible for a wide range of media, social, political and commercial projects. His experience spans both blue chip organizations within the public and private sector on both sides of the Irish Sea and abroad.

Alan is a full member of the Market Research Society.

Dawn McCartney

Founding Partner

Dawn is one of the founder members and a Director of Cognisense, having worked as an Account Director at Millward Brown Ulster for 10 years.

A Psychology graduate of Queen’s University, Dawn McCartney joined the Millward Brown Ulster team in 2008, having previously worked as Advertising Psychologist in a Belfast based advertising agency.

Dawn enhances our team of research executives, using her extensive expertise in advertising and communications research to the benefit of our clients. She thrives on delivering compelling insights which will shape the future of our clients business.

Her experience spans creative pre-testing, qualitative strategic development research and quantitative benchmarking and tracking surveys. Her client base incorporates a variety of organisations from both the public and private sector.

As well as being a member of the Market Research Society, Dawn is also a member of the British Psychological Society.

Glenn Hall

Founding Partner

As one of the founder members and a Director of Cognisense, Glenn began his Market Research Career at Millward Brown Ulster (formerly Ulster Marketing Surveys) back in 1994.

Glenn has a Business and Finance background, with special disciplines in Public Policy and Management. He is responsible for the design and management of many of our major clients throughout the UK and Ireland.

He is a highly experienced quantitative and qualitative researcher and has utilised his research expertise across sectors such as social, energy, telecommunications, government, leisure, FMCG, retailing and town centre planning and evaluation.

Glenn is a member of the Market Research Society.

Richard McGlimpsey

Senior Account Manager

A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Richard joined Millward Brown Ulster in 2008 from a background in media marketing insight. Since the formation of Cognisense Richard has filled the role of Senior Account Manager.

Since joining the team at Millward Brown Ulster back in 2008, Richard has been a key contributor to quantitative and qualitative projects on a wide range of subjects. He has played a vital role in developing our expertise in tourism & travel, culture & arts, financial services, retail and social research.

He plans to continue to utilise his skills and expertise to the benefit of all our Cognisense clients.

Jenny Gilgunn

Senior Account Manager

Jenny graduated from Queen’s University with an Honours degree in Business Information Technology. Since joining Millward Brown Ulster in 2005, Jenny has had several promotions and is now a Senior Account Manager with Cognisense.

Jenny is responsible for the management and co-ordination of a number of large scale quantitative research accounts mainly in the banking, travel and energy sectors. In addition to this, Jenny is one of the main contacts for our online web surveys.

David McGaughey

Operations Manager

David is Operations Manager at Cognisense, having worked as Field Manager with Millward Brown Ulster since 2011. He had 10 years of interviewing experience with the company prior to being appointed as Field Manager.

David has extensive expertise in managing the field aspects of both quantitative and qualitative research and is responsible for the day-to-day running of all quantitative and qualitative projects in the field. He manages our full complement of face-to-face and telephone interviewers. He is supported by 10 part-time supervisors.

David is also responsible for the management and day to day running of our telephone centre. In his capacity as Millward Brown Ulster Field Manager, David has managed the fieldwork of over 400 business-to-business and consumer research projects.

Harry Rosbotham

Senior Account Manager

Harry joined Millward Brown Ulster as Research Executive in 2008, having graduated from Queen’s University with a degree in Philosophy. He is now a Senior Account Manager at Cognisense.

Harry’s extensive experience spans managing policy evaluation studies, employee and customer satisfaction research. Since joining, he has utilised his expertise in quantitative and qualitative research to the benefit of a wide variety of company clients from sectors including education, health, transport, travel & tourism, local government and social welfare.